


all the stars will burn out sometime

by comatosecombat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Dreams, Elements from the Comics, Genderbending, M/M, Magic, Norse Mythology - Freeform, Not Really Character Death, Post-Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Post-Thor: The Dark World, Rebirth, the infinity stones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 14:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6757426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comatosecombat/pseuds/comatosecombat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Asgard may not have trusted in magic, but it was there, the city’s vast expanse of streets like a network of veins and in the middle its beating heart - the palace itself. The blood Loki found pumping through it all was the blood that had been spilled here, and whether he wanted to admit it or not, it was the same blood that coursed in his veins; the gift of sorcery that was willingly shared; a mother’s heart opened to him without obligation. This living thing beneath his fingertips, overflown with magic – this was Frigga’s legacy</em>
</p><p>After escaping death in Svartalfheim, Loki returns to Asgard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sets directly after/in the middle of Thor: The Dark World. Written before Age of Ultron actually came out, so although not exactly canon compliant, this story does allude to some of the characters and plot points that appear in that film.
> 
> Title comes from Aesthetic Perfection's song The Ones.

 

As far as dying was concerned - Loki thought absently, as he lay bleeding in the dirt, his ears filled with the sound of his own blood slowly dripping into the dirt - it would have been a noble death.

Long after Jane had finally managed to drag Thor away from his prone form, Loki continued to stay still and in deep deliberation of whether or not it was worth the effort to open his eyes ever again. There were many who would have considered it a blessing to die knowing that they were redeemed of their sins – if not by any higher judge – then at least in the eyes of their closest kin. Thor had certainly made it seem like that was the case and had even wanted to extend that goodwill further by telling Odin of his martyrdom. It made Loki believe that his name would live on in songs, even if it meant that the bards were forced to get little creative while composing verses of his previous actions; surely ‘multiple attempts of treason by a bastard’ didn’t rhyme well with ‘the beloved second son of the nation’.

Still, Loki was under no illusion that Thor wouldn’t insist on making sure that the writing of those damned sonnets actually took place, even if they were to be filled with half-truths and sentimental exaggerations. That image momentarily made him even more in favor of dying right then and there, if only to see such beautiful lies released into the universe. Now _that_ would be the eulogy he deserved, as well as one he might even appreciate.

But he feared – no, he _knew_ that the irony of it would be lost on everyone else who wasn’t proud to carry such titles as he. Should he decide to stay there until his heart finally grew weary in its fight against the inevitable, he would be brought back to Asgard – not in chains this time, but on a pair of stretchers made of the finest silk – and hailed as a reformed sinner; and Odin in his great wisdom would immortalize his name in the stars next to Frigga’s, where it would live forever on, permanently out of reach of any future shade he himself could cast over it by simply continuing his existence.

With that precise fate in mind, Loki slowly opened his eyes, if only to marvel at the vast expanse of universe that opened above him for the very last time –

\- and then he breathed in deep, filling his lungs with the planet’s dry air that tasted of ash and sulfur. Next, he proceeded to sit up, and was nearly knocked down again by the pain that shot through his left side, where the spear had actually pierced his flesh, if not as fatally as he had made it seem in the eyes of his oblivious audience. It hurt even a great deal more to summon his remaining powers to heal the wound in question and in the end he wasn’t entirely pleased with the result. But at least it put him out of the immediate danger of bleeding out, and he could start his slow limping back to the place where the vessel they had travelled there lay on its side in the sand and search shelter there for the time being.

As he sat there, shielded from both the flying sand and the icy wind, Loki realized that during the previous mental coin toss which had decided his fate, there had been one fatal error in his logic, and that was the assumption that Thor would actually succeed in saving the Nine Realms from whatever chaos Malekith had in store for them (Loki had to admit that he was little hazy on the details of that particular scheme – in his opinion, if one wanted to resume his people’s status as a master race, plunging the whole universe into darkness wasn’t the way to do it). Likewise, the fact that the Aether was now inside Malekith’s body rather than Jane’s wasn’t as much an advantage as it was the worst possible scenario imaginable, although Loki was sure that Thor in all his foolish affection towards the mortal certainly didn’t see it like that. He found himself hoping that victory was still achievable despite that particular error, if only for the sake of his reputation; if the whole creation was to succumb to eternal darkness due to one human’s safety, then he would do right by keeling over right now despite any earlier promises, only because he had played a part in it.

But although the shadows grew longer as hours passed, the night itself didn’t seem unnaturally dark. During his exile Loki had fallen beyond the scope of Yggdrasil’s guarded branches and he had witnessed first-handed the forgotten corners of the universe, places where darkness had been so all-encompassing that it had taken away both his breath and his name, robbing him even of his magic. Needless to say, it had not been one of his proudest moments, more so because that had been the manner in which the Chitauri patrol had found him, crawling on all fours like an animal on some poor excuse of a planet, with his mind set ablaze by both the dark and the howling silence. Back then he had been blinded by the night that knew no end – no wonder it had felt like the Tesseract had given him a new set of eyes, since staring at it had been like gazing at the light of the stars for the very first time; even mortals knew that such sight had driven men to madness long before his brief attempt to rule Midgard.

So he knew what true darkness was, intimately, and whatever the grey dullness around him was, it certainly wasn’t the end of all things. It left him to believe that, against all odds, Thor had once again managed to save the day.

As the first light of dawn broke through the stormy whirlpool of clouds above and he still found the world to be as it always was, Loki decided to head home.

Seeing that he had none, and that he was a wanted man in more than one Realm, he picked the lesser of many evils.

With great effort, he righted the vessel and started his journey back to Asgard.

 

*

 

His homecoming was rather anticlimactic, as well as lacking in any fanfare. During the flight he had disguised himself as one of the guards, but eventually decided to drop the act as he reached the palace, knowing that Odin would see straight through any possible tricks he might be able to conjure in his current weakened state.

As he limped through the battleworn halls some of the soldiers looked at his blood-soaked armor in confusion, clearly unsure whether they were to arrest him or to help him; Loki got the impression that they were more inclined to believe the blood spattered on him originated from some unfortunate bystander rather than from his own veins. Yet none of them tried to stop him and he reached the throne room without objection, continuing his journey through the hall and stepping carefully around the crater left by the bigger ship.

During his walk he had been aware of the lone figure sitting above all else, but had carefully maintained from redirecting his gaze from the floor ahead. Only when he finally stood at the foot of the throne itself, this time happily free of any shackles, he lifted his eyes to meet Odin’s stare.

To his disappointment he found it to be quite lacking in surprise. The All-Father merely gazed at him with his scar-pieced brow cocked, regarding him steadily.

“So,” Odin mused, finally deeming the silence worth breaking. “You’re alive, then.”  His tone was indecipherable. “My sources told me that you perished in the battle.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Loki answered, as wryly as he could manage. “I take it that Thor has saved the Realms?”

Odin nodded. “He is yet to return, but he sent word from Midgard that Malekith is dead and the Aether is secured.”

He was clearly immensely pleased on both accounts. Loki felt the corner of his eye give an involuntary twitch; not for the first time, and what hardly seemed like the last, he questioned his reasons to return to the land of the living.

He didn’t get the chance to dwell on that particular thought for long, because in the next minute Odin’s expression was darkening as it settled on that grim scowl Loki was much more accustomed to dealing with. “Thor undoubtedly has his reasons to linger, but at the moment I’m more interested in yours, given that you have decided to return.” With one cold eye, he measured Loki’s torn form and clearly drew his own conclusions from it. Judging by his unchangeable expression and the great sigh he heaved, that opinion wasn’t in his favor. “Why are you here, Loki? Did you come to crow at the state of what used to be your home, to laugh while Asgard lies in ruins?”

Somewhere beneath Loki’s skin his magic hissed like a riled snake, but he could tell that his heart wasn’t truly in it. Still, to gain some time to compose himself, he averted his eyes and focused on the view of the city below that opened on his right, courtesy of the massive hole that had been blown into the wall. Standing there amidst of all the rubble and dust, he suddenly found the whole argument and everything related to tiresome. It was, in the lack of a more eloquent expression – simply pointless. No sooner than the thought itself had occurred to him, he already knew not to waste any breath in making it known. It was beyond Odin’s supposedly all-seeing scope to comprehend that like those very walls, certain patterns in behavior could be erased by violent interference.

“Why would I find it amusing, when the defeat is mine to share?” Loki replied, his tone flat. “I came for some of Mother’s belongings. If you’re to throw me back in my cell, then allow me the courtesy to bring her books with me. The spells on those pages will be of little use to me there, but at least I have something to pass the time with.”

The smirk Odin gave him could hardly be called a smile. “Lie to me all you want, but don’t take me for a fool: we both know that those books would be anything but harmless in your hands.” But then he was already continuing by waving his hand in dismissal, saying, “Go on then, take whatever of hers you like and then be on your way. It isn’t as if there is a single soul in Asgard who finds those words worth reading.”

This permission gave Loki a pause, and even made him discard the obvious and ancient-old remark on how useless the whole of Asgard found his particular skillset. “You’re not locking me up?” he asked, astonished.

“It seems to me that whenever someone attempts to yank the chain around your neck, you only pull harder against it,” Odin told him. “You have proven time and time again that you lie and cheat as easily as you breathe. I doubt whether there is a cell in whole creation that can contain such venom, and given the current state of our prisons, I find myself reluctant to even try.”

And there it was, the familiar verbal knife that found its target more accurately than any of the real ones he had ever thrown. Loki allowed himself the briefest of smiles, even if it was for the sake of his own foolishness.

“Thank you,” he said, inclining his head accordingly, “for proving me wrong, because for a second there, I actually thought that the great All-Father was capable of such thing as mercy.” His next sneer was sharp enough to left the corners of his mouth aching.  “You know, if I didn’t know any better, I might actually believe that I am of your flesh and blood after all.”

Without waiting for an answer, Loki turned on his heel and left the hall.

 

*

 

Asgard after battle wasn’t something Loki had not witnessed before, but this was the first occasion during his lifetime when the enemy had managed to infiltrate their line of defense and cause such havoc to the city itself – if, of course, one left out of count that time when Loki himself had brought the Jotuns to the palace.

Between that and the moment he had suggested an alternative route to that monster from the confines of his cell, his motivations couldn’t have been different. After all, the first decision to butcher his kin had been a deliberate one; the second was not.

For once true to his word, Loki had come to the Queen’s Chambers in search of books, but found himself transfixed on the spot of dried blood on the floor near the balcony.

 

_Since the earlier argument, a great silence had fallen between them. Under the speeding vessel, Svartalfheim’s endless desolation spread as far as eye could see, a graveyard of crumpled cities and destroyed ships. Loki pretended to watch them as they glided past, but from the corner of his eye he spied as Thor attempted to shield Jane from the elements by covering her with yet another cloth - a gesture that was rendered morbid since her resemblance to someone already beyond this world was made uncanny for it. Loki, with his hand tightening involuntarily around the vessel’s control, was surely fit for rowing a boat to Hel, but Thor still refused to see the truth._

_“How did she die?” Loki finally asked, when he couldn’t bear the silence no more. In the face on Thor’s confusion, he clarified, “Mother, I mean. The guard only told me what he deemed was necessary for me to know.”_

_Thor spared Jane yet another brief glance before giving his answer. “Fighting,” he said. “She died fighting. Thanks to her, Jane is still with us.”_

_“And is it a trade you consider fair?” Loki wanted to know. “Her life in exchange for this mortal’s?”_

_There was hardly any true venom in his voice, but Thor looked wounded nevertheless. “It is not in my nature to weigh the value of the lives of those dearest to me,” he remarked, unfamiliar bitterness dripping from his words like tar. “I leave such things to you, brother.”_

Guilt, Loki thought, was such a strange little thing. For a long time he had believed it to be something that the universe had taken away from him as he fell through its fabrication, along with certain aspects of his sanity. But here it was, staring right back at him from those bloodstained cobbles.

Without really meaning to, Loki found himself kneeling beside the spot. Slowly, he pressed his palms flat against the floor, finding it still a little warm from the light that was now beginning to disappear beyond the distant horizon. He closed his eyes, in the same manner he closed his ears from any noise except the one that could be heard within the stone itself. And then, for a long stretch of time, he simply lost himself in the sound of its voice, that hidden wailing that seemed to serve no other purpose but to mourn with him. The enemy’s siege had torn asunder the ancient spells and enchantments once embedded to every rock of the palace, and what little had been spared by the annihilation was now beginning to evaporate as well, the stone sensing its loss and weeping for it.

Asgard may not have trusted in magic, but it was there, the city’s vast expanse of streets like a network of veins and in the middle its beating heart - the palace itself. The blood Loki found pumping through it all was the blood that had been spilled here, and whether he wanted to admit it or not, it was the same blood that coursed in his veins as well; the gift of sorcery that was willingly shared; a mother’s heart opened to him without obligation. This living thing beneath his fingertips, overflown with magic – this was Frigga’s legacy.

Loki stayed there on his knees until the light had disappeared from the sky and the city was cast in starlight. Then, as he finally rose to his feet, he wiped his eyes and returned the books he had removed back to their proper places.

Next, he arranged the room to his liking, thinking that if he were to stay for a while, he might as well make himself comfortable.

 

*

 

The Asgardians took to him staying with as much warmth as Loki had anticipated, which was to say: none whatsoever. During the following week, on those occasions he ventured outside of his new rooms, he was met with disbelieving stares and outright anger. The locals hated him with such vigor that Loki instantly decided to keep to himself how he found it much more refreshing than that carefully veiled mockery they had regarded him with in his youth.

Whereas it was a known throughout Asgard that Heimdall had eyes that saw everything and no word went unheard past the All-Father’s ears, the whispers regarding the Queen’s certain gifts had always been few in number. As a child, Loki remembered one particular night, long after they were both supposed to be soundly asleep, when he had sneaked into Thor’s room through the adjoining door from his own quarters, only to share with him the most impossible bit of gossip he had heard while eavesdropping the conversation between servants: that their mother held the rare gift of foresight.

He also remembered just as vividly how Thor had then bursted into laughter, loud enough to wake the matron sleeping on her post outside the door, and how his disbelief had been so complete that he had kept giggling  throughout the woman’s scolding. Naturally Loki had never actually admitted that he could have been wrong to believe such a thing and even went as far as approached Frigga the next day with the question already there on the tip of his tongue. But then, just as he opened his mouth to speak, the memory of Thor’s mockery had flashed before his eyes and his laughter filled his ears; and so Loki had held his tongue, and kept the guessing to himself.

If Frigga knew the true reason for his strange behavior and that such talk even existed around the palace in the first place, she certainly never mentioned it. Loki could see her reasoning; to most Asgardians she was first and foremost a Queen associated with grace and light, and such dark things as fortunetelling and other tricks of fate were best left to the Norns.

At the time hardly anyone outside the immediate royal family had even been aware that she knew sorcery in the first place. Loki remembered being glad to a point of smugness as she had called it ‘their little secret’, basking in the knowledge that the two of them had something no one else was to be part of. But as he grew older that blessing became a double-edged blade, when other people grew suspicious in the face of his unexplainable powers that seemed to have no logical origin. Frigga had stepped forth then, making her skills known at least to some degree, but at that time it was already too late – in the eyes of the public, Thor was the sun-kissed prince, born with hands that were meant to yield a sword, while Loki moved silently like an ill whisper from shadow to shadow, speaking and knowing things that no one had any right to know, unless there were dark acts of magic involved.

(As it was then and ever since, Loki had no need to defend himself. But if he had, he would have argued how it was actually their own big mouths that had made their (rather mundane, really) businesses known, and _not_ his keenness to resort to spells over revealing them.)

But now, as he spent his days mending the city’s defenses, fixing enchantments and redirecting energy fields, Loki couldn’t help but to wonder if he was only playing his part in some form of a long con designed by his late mother. He wouldn’t put it past her, knowing fully well that her wicked sense of humor was sadly among the things many had liked to polish off when remembering her, only because it didn’t suit whatever image of immaculate royalty the Asgardians had constructed of her in their narrow minds.

Of course, there was always the possibility that it wasn’t actually _him_ that Frigga had stringed along, but the entity of Asgard; that it was her private idea of a joke to take the thing that was both the laughing stock of the locals as well as the stuff of their nightmares, and make it essential to the continued well-being of the city. Whether that thing was magic or Loki himself, or if there was any difference between the two in the first place, that he couldn’t say.

As of now, Loki’s days were spent in pursuit of the crossing points of the invisible net that ran beneath the stone. Frigga may have been the one to teach him sorcery in the first place, but Loki knew that any attempt of his to produce the same exact end-result would lead in failure. Each person’s magic manifested uniquely; _a fingerprint of the soul_ , his mother had called it, before she knew better than to teach her younger son things that would only serve to alienate him further from others. For Frigga, her magic was a way to knit things together, but for Loki, it had always been something that set him apart from others. For if he was good at something that was widely considered _bad,_ then what did that make him? Years before learning that he was a monster also by birth, Loki had already discovered the shadow that resided in his heart.

To him, his magic acted as a skeleton key. At its most basic, it got him through locked doors and traps or provided the necessary tools to solve a puzzle. He preferred tricks and cons, but what else were illusions than elaborate ways to get into the guarded minds of people, or a way to unlock their hearts’ desires. Locks were many in nature, but as it happens, there were only so many keys in the world.

Never had Frigga failed to praise his cleverness, but at times Loki had caught her eye before she managed to school her features into a smile and he had seen the gnawing doubt reflected there. Her fear was quite understandable: she had, after all, taught him so that one day he could help her protect Asgard, and had then witnessed him pulling living snakes out of his pockets instead. Odin may have been the one to bring the sorry creature home, but maybe at times Frigga had blamed herself for raising a viper in her bosom, nursing the very snake that would grow to destroy the worlds.

All in all, Loki knew his task had less to do with rebuilding than actually starting over. He was forced to figure out what Frigga had done and then find his own way to achieve the same. Simple in theory, but much harder in practice as it turned out. He had always felt comfortable in various shapes, but when harnessed to serve such purposes as _protect_ and _bind_ , his magic found these new tasks alien. It was like taming a wild horse into a beast of burden, and Loki had but the weight of the debt he owed her to use as a bridle.

On the fifth day he was once again lying on the floor of some hallway with his ear pressed against the stone, when the ground began to tremble like he was about to be stomped over by a herd of bilchsteim on a rampage. He kept his eyes closed as he waited for the pounding to draw closer, finally halting at his side.

“Did you really think that you could deceive us with this scheme?”

With a long-suffering sight, Loki opened his eyes, finding his vision filled with four pairs of boots. “And what scheme may that be, I wonder?”

“The only reason why you are repairing those enchantments is because you want to bend them to your will,” Sif hissed. Next to her, the Warriors Three nodded in unison. “You replace them with your own, so that when the time comes, you can command them as you wish.”

Loki had to give them credit, if not for originality, then at least for the quick pace they had arrived to such a conclusion. He had estimated that it would take them at least a week to do so. Ever since Odin had forbidden them from mentioning his survival to Thor, they had grown even more suspicious, ready to jump to all and any excuse to have him imprisoned once more.

In the face of such promising development of wits, it was a pity that he was planning no such thing. For once in his life Loki decided to tell them the truth, if only because he found it to be the most elaborated lie there was.

He gathered himself up from the floor and dusted off his clothing, before leveling them all with a fixed stare. “The very soul of my mother lives inside these stones,” he said. “You see, it is all that I have left of her, and finishing this task is the only way I can ask for her forgiveness.”

His statement was met with conflicting responses: while Hogun’s stare merely swayed from menacing to greatly annoyed, Fandral at least was now sifting his weight uncomfortable from one foot to another. Volstagg simply appeared as dim-witted as ever.

Only Sif’s expression stayed unchangeable, her distrust apparent. “Give us one good reason why we should believe a word you say.”

Loki simply spread out his hands in surrender. “By all means, take your concerns up with our King. Unless -” he guessed gleefully “- you already did, and he dismissed them.”

Based on the row on unhappy faces, he could easily say he had been right.

Eventually, it was Volstagg who grumbled, “We all know that the All-Father hasn’t been himself since Asgard lost its Queen.”

 _“Really?”_  Loki placed a hand over his heart, implicating shock. “Are you sure it’s wise to make such accusations?” he stage-whispered. “And in the company of a well-known criminal, no less.”

On cue, a loud caw could be heard from the ceiling above, as either Huginn or Munin chose that exact moment to make their presence known. As it pierced the air, Volstagg jumped with a force that nearly landed him out of his skin, but sadly it only made him stomp on Hogun’s toes.

Sif wisely seemed to decide that it was time for a tactical retreat. “We have our eye on you,” she stated, and then leaded her band of merry idiots away, Hogun still glaring daggers at Volstagg.

Long after the sound of their retreating footsteps and the groaning of the seams of Volstagg’s leather tunic had disappeared from his ears, Loki stayed in thought, turning over in his head what he had just heard. Although it was clear to everyone (even to his comrades in arms) that the man was an obese imbecile in possession of the same amount of intelligence as a single flee, Volstagg’s somewhat casual remark had spoken volumes, and Loki couldn’t help but to smile at the irony of it: the seeds of revolution, sown without him even having anything to do with it. All that was needed of him was to give it the tiniest of nudges – a little belittling there, some words of encouragement elsewhere - and before Odin even knew it, he would have a nationwide mutiny in his hands.

It was an easy victory to be had – even a little too easy, Loki thought somewhat bitterly, as his gaze gravitated towards the ceiling above, from where he knew the eyes of his guardians tracked him even then, ever watchful. Even though they were almost at his level in making themselves unnoticeable, Loki was aware that Huginn and Muninn had been following him from day one, no doubt reporting his movements back to Odin. At the first sign of any trouble Loki would be accused of it, and Odin would find it his great pleasure to either cast him out more or even get rid of him for good – after all, according to the All-Father’s own words, death and destruction followed wherever Loki went, as it was in his nature to cause them.

Under the circumstances it must have been most unnerving to Odin to be given the same exact report at the end of each day: that that no-good imposter of a son of his continued to do the same thing as he had done since day one, without showing any signs of setting things aflame or sneaking enemy forces inside their gates. _“Loki Liesmith speaks to the stone, my liege,”_ Huginn would croak; “ _He rests upon the rocks even as others prepare for bed,”_ Muninn could confirm. And every time after such report Odin would send them out again to spy him, and they would always return with the same news.

And so it would go on, Loki decided, running his fingers absently along the long tapestry that decorated the halls leading to the Queen’s chambers – because Odin continued to expect the worst from him, and at this point, choosing not to deliver would be the greatest surprise of them all.

*

 

He had been back in Asgard for a week and Thor gone the same amount of days, when Loki first found himself spying on him.

Whereas it was clear that Heimdall would never share his secrets with him, he now had other methods in his disposal. And so, using the enchanted fountain in the Queen’s chambers, Loki learned of Thor’s life in Midgard. It didn’t take him long to see how once again, if by some cosmic joke, their lives seemed to mirror one another: here they were, strangers in lands they had promised to protect for reasons of their own, only to be rewarded for their trouble by the clear distrust of the locals.

But that was where the similarities ended: whereas Loki had but ghosts at his side, Thor was surrounded by his new comrades. Watching him interact with them, Loki had to stop and wonder whether they would have welcomed him with such open arms only some years back. The banishment, the Chitauri War – undeniably, it was Loki’s crimes that had made his brother worthy of their affection. Thor was who he was today because he had had Loki act as his adversary. It was a thought as maddening as it was jealous; that this way, an essential part of Thor belonged - and would always do so - to Loki.

But by that same logic, a part of him also belonged to someone else now. Loki watched as Thor was preparing to return to Asgard and be yet again forced to leave behind the woman on whose behalf he had been ready to trade the universe. As the date of his return drew closer, the lines on his face grew deeper and the light in his blue eyes went dimmer, and Loki had known, then, exactly what sort of fate Thor had chosen for himself.

“You saw the lengths in which he was ready to go for her sake,” he told Odin, without lifting his eyes from the book he had spread open on his lap. “You know what he’s coming here to tell you.”

It was the first time the two of them had spoken since that day in the throne room. Today, Odin had sought him out as he had been sitting in one of the palace’s many gardens, reading. Loki made no pretense that it was a mere coincidence, the timing that brought them together again, nor did it come as any sort of surprise that once Odin had found a topic worth the effort of reaching out to him, it was naturally about Thor.

Odin didn’t give his answer right away. Despite Loki not actually watching him, he could feel a wave of strong displeasure radiating from him, and it made him smirk despite himself. There were few things he and the All-Father agreed on, but their opinion about mortals and their insignificance was definitely one of them.

“Thor is free to do as he pleases,” Odin finally said. Loki considered it a rather elegant way of admitting that he had, in fact, been wrong about something. “It is a right he has fully earned.”

 _Unlike you_ , Loki deciphered the unfinished ending of that particular sentence. He scoffed, setting aside his book and finally meeting Odin’s stare head-on. “I thought his actions earned him the kinghood of Asgard. I mean, what is even the point of you wanting to give him all those lessons in virtue and kicking me aside from the line to the throne, if he isn’t even going to sit on it?”

“Would you prefer it if I forced it on him, then?” Odin snapped. After a moment’s disgruntled glaring, he went on to lament, more to himself than to Loki’s profit, “The gods truly are testing me; to have one son who doesn’t want the throne, and another who wants it too much. Is this to be my legacy?”

Loki was now forced to wonder if Odin truly was so blind that he couldn’t see the irony of the situation or if this woeful yammering of his was to be taken as yet another imaginative method of torture. In some ways it was nearly comic; he should have known that after all the effort he had put in revealing the many weaknesses in Thor’s character, it only took him falling for a mere mortal to render him obscene in Odin’s eyes. Loki himself had, after all, tried – and then failed – to wipe his own entire race out of existence as a proof of his loyalty to Asgard and only gotten thrown to the abyss for it. In light of that and now his reaction to Thor’s nearing decision, it seemed safe to assume that radical acts of love weren’t to the All-Father’s liking.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, old man, but if you think that what either of us wants still holds any sort of priority to Thor, then you are to be gravelly disappointed.”

Loki had intended to utter the words like an insult, but was surprised to discover how forlorn his own voice sounded to his ears. He had killed and had himself been killed in Thor’s name – what else was there left to give?  

Still, he couldn’t help but to wonder how it would feel, witnessing Thor’s disappointment first-hand. It was clear that Odin would never give him his blessing to leave, so if Loki wished to see him scolded, this was his chance.

But was it truly something he craved?

Under Odin’s scrutiny, he quickly directed his eyes back to the book he had been reading, if only to give himself a moment to compose into words the dangerous idea that had just wormed its way into his head. He knew there was a saying in Midgard how curiosity got the cat killed, but that warning certainly hadn’t stopped him before.

Striving for as neutral tone as he could muster, Loki went on to suggest, “If you don’t wish to speak to him, then let me do so on your behalf. You can even let your winged spies testify the whole ordeal.”

Odin actually let out a low chuckle. “And what would I benefit from such an arrangement?” he inquired, almost intrigued. “What would you?”

For a painstaking moment, Loki’s mind was pierced by the memory of a warm palm resting against his cheek, while the stench of blood hang heavy in the air. He shook his head and the image dissolved, leaving in its wake only a dull ache. “I believe we both have things we want to say to Thor, but are… _indisposed_ to say in person.”

For all his lies in that moment of not-dying, the same thing was true now than it had been then: he wasn’t doing this for Odin.

But like the fool he was, the All-Father eventually agreed.

 

*

 

When Thor finally arrived, Loki found it a blessing to be able to look at him behind his disguise of Odin. Thus free of his own tangled myriad of emotions, he spoke the All-Father’s words and borrowed his expressions, and when Thor – true to his word – gave news of his heroic death, said nothing of it; he didn’t need a script to know Odin’s feelings about his pitiful attempt to make amends.

But then, as Thor predictively moved on to express his own wish to leave, things quickly fell off course. Loki had crafted this charade to see if it would bring him satisfaction to see Thor kneeling so humbly at his feet - but now that he had it, it nearly made his skin crawl.

In a burst of righteous anger Loki suddenly wanted to give the trick away, if only to scold his brother for taking knee in the first place. Who was he to quiver at the All-Father’s feet after defeating Malekith? And if he truly found that insignificant, then what about more personal matters; surely Thor knew how lowly Odin thought of Jane, so why care for his opinion?

Thor had already risen to his feet and turned to go, his great shoulders hunched in weary defeat, when Loki felt something inside him give. Before he knew it, he was putting strange words into Odin’s mouth, expressing pride for a son capable of following his heart over mindless obedience. It was a speech that had its roots in the secret wishes of his childhood, but it was only while speaking when he understood that he had no one left to comfort. Neither him nor Thor were those boys anymore, so desperately looking for their father’s approval. They had both spent time in exile and during that time had grown out of Odin’s shadow. Now Thor was every inch the king he was meant to be and even more so, after coming to the realization that to rule would be his downfall. Of course he would rather live his life as a good man, than be a king brought low by his sense of duty.

Even now he wasn’t really asking Odin for his permission to leave, but rather granting him the rare opportunity to see reason by allowing it.

When Loki had first plotted against Thor, he had done it in the hopes that others would see what had been painfully clear in his eyes: that his brother wasn’t ready to be a king. But now, Loki found that he could no longer hate him based on his crass or stupidity, and that the only reason left for him to despise Thor was his continuous ability to transcend humility. The day he turned his back on the throne was paradoxically the moment his brother was finally worthy of it even in Loki’s ever-so critical eyes.

He still remembered the moment he had hovered over the ruined edge of the Bridge, Thor’s crestfallen expression only a little above his, and then seeing that same look on Thor’s face only seven days ago when he had held Loki’s broken body in his arms. Loki might not have died on that day, but perhaps some part – that mad, twisted thing that had crawled back from the abyss – had indeed perished. Now there would be a moment forever frozen in time where Thor had looked him in the eyes and seen the brother he thought he had lost for good. Loki may have been born a monster, but even he wasn’t up to robbing that memory from him, as it now was the only valuable thing in his disposal to offer.

Unlike Odin, who would not allow it, Loki could let Thor go. He could stay dead for him, if that would bring him peace.

  _I’ll let you be rid of me_ , he thought – and this time, it was not an act born out of spite, but a kindness.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

When Loki had been but a young child, he was given a gift by one of Asgard’s many craftsmen, eager as they were to please the royal family in the hopes of receiving further commissions from them. The gift in question had been a round globe made of glass and filled with transparent liquid, containing inside a miniaturized version of the palace. The bottom was flickered with tiny white flakes and it only required the touch of his hand against the glass to urge them on the move, making them float around the tiny golden towers like billowing snow.

As far as gifts went, it was small in comparison, but Loki remembered liking it for the simple reason that it had answered to his touch alone; if anyone else beside him was to shake the thing, the flakes would sink to the bottom to lie there in adamant stillness. It was also the cause of the globe’s early demise, as Thor in his frustration had thrown it against the floor, shattering the glass and thus bringing end to the short space of time when Asgard – locked in the jaws in winter – had been but Loki’s to command as he wished.

Now, centuries later, the city hummed under Loki’s touch once more. A few days after Thor’s departure heavy clouds gathered above the city, soon covering the streets in snow.

It wasn’t that often that foul weather should fell upon Asgard, and Heimdall seemed to believe that the cold was due to the Convergence, some lasting side-effect of the alignment of the Realms. Despite any childish fascination he had at the time felt for the globe’s frosty landscape, Loki now loathed the similarity with all his being. It didn’t matter which way he looked at it, because in the end it only served to remind him of two things: firstly, how he had spent his whole life growing attached to things, only to watch them being ripped away, and secondly, how something as simple as a child’s toy had now become but an example in foreseen irony.

The cold also made him anxious, mostly because he knew he was expected to feel it like everyone else, huddled under their thick winter cloaks as they were. He most certainly wasn’t supposed  to find himself walking barefoot in the snowy garden one morning, after forgetting to put on his boots upon waking, nor was he thrilled to discover how even his magic seemed to betray him, as it nearly tore itself free from his fingertips upon casting and then galloped ahead joyful through the icy stones.

Whereas his powers only appeared amplified by it, the cold made a gnawing weariness settled over his limbs. It made him feel as if he was a candle about to go out, or perhaps something much more destructible, like a massive star at the end of its lifespan, mere moments away from becoming a supernova. Like a star’s core, his anger had been exhausted, _stolen_. In its place Loki was left with a series of dreams that bore too much resemblance to those he had seen in his youth, back when he still believed them to reflect what he had foolishly considered to be his biggest secret.

In the most recurring dream, he found himself once more imprisoned in the Helicarrier’s glass cage, unable to do anything but watch in sickening anticipation as Thor appeared on the other side. This vision made flesh did not utter a single word; he only held Loki’s gaze the entire time as he kept coming towards him, bypassing completely the controls that had the power to launch his prison into the skies below. When the glass was the only thing separating them, Thor slowly reached out a hand to touch it. The moment his fingers made contact, Loki felt himself explode into a blinding blizzard, coming awake each and every time with a gasp.

During one especially chilly morning, as he rested his palm against the wall to check the new enchantments he had made the night before, he could suddenly feel the material shift beneath his skin. As he moved his hand aside, he was met by his own reflection, casted back at him from a small patch of ice.

Evidently, he decided, there was only so far you could drill; whatever of Frigga was left in his veins was soon to run its course, forced to make way for the unenviable lurking underneath.

 

*

 

If Loki had to pinpoint the moment he first knew for sure that Odin preferred his elder son over the younger, it would be the day when Thor was given Mjolnir.

It was after a great battle – against which enemy was beside the point, or that is how Thor saw it anyway, given how his warmongering had more to do with his pathological need to bash skulls than the threat itself. For the first time ever Odin had allowed Thor to take command of the troops and he had performed admirably, a balancing act consisting of courage and pure foolhardiness, combined with his ability to rally the troops with inspiring words that put even Loki’s famous silver tongue to shame. The warriors had been quick to forget that their leader was barely older than the sword he carried, and they followed him gladly, Thor’s red cape pillowing behind him like a flag of victory as he rounded them for a charge after another.

Needless to say, Odin had been impressed. Some days after, in a ceremony held in honor of those who had fallen, he praised Thor’s efforts and even went on to reveal a special gift he had hand-picked for him from the weapons vault: a battle hammer made in the heart of a dying star, forged by no other than the famous dwarf-smiths of Nidavellir.

For once in his life, even Thor had been rendered speechless.

It was a luxury that hadn’t lasted for long. The next day Loki got dragged to the training field by Thor and Sif, who were eager to test Mjolnir’s abilities. So far the training had mostly consisted of Thor throwing the hammer as far he could possibly muster, only for it to return to his hand in the next moment. Loki sat on the far side of the field and took out his own set of specialized knives, intent on focusing in the task of sharpening them while avoiding the insufferable ruckus. He hadn’t been absorbed in his work for long, before he could hear the sound of nearing footsteps behind his back.

“Your brother has one of the most powerful weapons of the kingdom at his disposal and this is what he chooses to do with it,” he heard a woman’s voice marking distastefully. “Playing fetch?”

While doing his best to contain a smirk that demanded to be seen, Loki balanced one of the smaller knives on the tip of his finger. “Well, to be fair, it _does_ come when he calls it.”

“Then Odin should have gotten him a pet instead,” Lorelai concluded, and came to sit next to him.

It had been a long time since Loki had last seen her there, but it was actually while in training that the two of them had first met. Lorelai was as good with a blade as any other warrior, something Loki knew well from past nicks and bruises, but these days her time seemed to be occupied by other kind of physicals activities. She was well on her way to become Asgard’s official incarnation of sin; by day, the men agreed with their wives as they called her a harlot, only to sneak into her house after nightfall.

Of course, being a shining beacon for infidels wasn’t the only trait she possessed to turn the public opinion against her. At that time her older sister had already been banished from Asgard for her crimes and there was talk that she had gone to the Norns to practice her magic further. It didn’t matter that Lorelai herself had never publicly expressed any interest in sorcery – whenever people now looked at her, they only saw another Amora in the making. Loki could certainly relate and he had never really made any effort to hide that notion from her, something she could have used against him, but for some reason was yet do so. Perhaps it was because they only had each other in the end, the two bad apples that were expected to spoil the whole bunch.

Now, Lorelai turned to him with a smile so crooked that Loki seriously doubted whether she would ever be caught wearing it by any of her late guests. “So, despite your achievements in the same battle, I take it that there was no magic hammer in waiting with your initials carved on it?”

“Are you suggesting that my brother’s success isn’t a prize on its own?” Loki gasped, tone wounded. “That it doesn’t fill my heart with joy to see Thor rewarded, despite the fact that he has about as much understanding for the true value of that thing than a blind man has for a pair of glasses…“

“An enchanted weapon in the hands of that member of the family who doesn’t know magic,” Lorelai scoffed, not fooled for a second. “He uses it to crack bones and smash rocks, both tasks in which any sort of blunt object would suffice. It is a disgrace – a waste of both spells and steel.”

Loki looked down at his collection of knives. They had been a gift from his mother, one he had received upon finishing his training. Some – Thor included – had first laughed when he had announced that he would prefer to train with the women, and Sif, who had always made her best to escape such fate, nearly punched him for it. Only Frigga had appeared understanding; it was after all she who had made Loki realize early on that if he were ever to be a match for the likes of his brother, then he should find a way to rely on other talents than brutal strength. Now, he was a master when it came to spears and knives – but no matter how skilfully he threw them, none of them had the power to recognize him worthy enough so that they would return to his hand.

When Loki lifted his eyes back to Lorelai, he noticed that her gaze had in turn wandered elsewhere. For a moment he thought she was looking at Mjolnir, but on closer inspection he saw that her eyes were on Sif, as she watched her watching Thor. It was a hungry look, one that Loki recognized all too well from all the times he had caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror while wearing it. She appeared as if she wanted to take something from Sif, for no other reason than to see her losing it.

“As for _why_ Odin didn’t give the hammer to you instead,” Lorelai said suddenly. “I suggest you ask yourself this: why would he, when he knows it could eventually make them –“ she waved her hand towards the city – “the thing between it and the anvil.”

Many swore that Lorelai had an unnatural skill to put men under her will, and there were times like these when Loki almost wished that – if such a power existed - it would work on him. Maybe it was narcissisms at its best, but in that moment Loki was struck by the idea that if he were ever to have a source of genuine happiness in his life, then his only chance at it would be with her. For all he knew, Odin and Frigga could even be hoping for it, the same way they had hopes for Thor and Sif, that disillusionment being the very reason why they were yet to deny Loki from being seen in Lorelai’s company. Maybe they actually believed that love would be enough to save them both from those dark things that lurked within their skins.

But before Loki had the chance to chase that thought any further, a loud noise could be overheard from the skies. Suddenly, a wild jolt of lightning cracked the air in half and painted everything in shades of light and dark, leaving Loki’s eyes unfocused and stinging. He turned to stare in the direction of the field, only to see Thor laughing in the middle of it, Mjolnir with its hammer-head glowing still held high in one uplifted hand.

“Brother, did you see that?!” he called out to Loki; as if anyone with eyes could have missed such a spectacle. “Did you see what this thing can do?!”

Loki’s eyes were still trying to find their focus. All he could see was Thor, standing there as bright and beaming as a torch – everything else around him was cast in tones of black and grey.

Such was Thor’s mere presence: it threw such a large shadow, that it engulfed everything of Loki’s, from the depths of his heart into the most isolated corners of his mind, leaving him unable to seek solace even in sleep.

When his eyesight finally returned back to normal, Lorelai was already long gone.

As it happens, she committed her first punishable acts by law not long after that. When Loki eventually followed in suit, she hadn’t even been in Asgard to see it.

Only now, she was apparently back, locked inside a small cell in the deepest corner of the palace’s prison.

If asked, Loki wasn’t sure if he could have explained what had drawn him into the prison quarters that day, when he had just spent the past weeks avoiding them to his best ability. But the unexpected winter showed no signs of relenting, his magic seemed to have developed a mind of its own, and now, like a sleepwalker following a siren’s song he had ascended here, into the belly of the beast.

She could not speak. She sat on the narrow bed, muzzled by an enchanted collar like some mad mutt, her green eyes sparkling with the fury of a caged animal. But none of that was important, since she didn’t need words to make her thoughts of him known; through the slits between those golden hoops Loki could see a sliver of her chapped lips and was met with a mocking smirk, dripping with bitterness.

She might have been the one behind bars and wearing a muzzle, but it was a look directed to a pet spoiled rotten.

Later, Loki would never have admitted to it if asked, but the truth was that he turned his back on her and all but fled the premises. It took him ages to regain control over his trembling hands and even as he did, he couldn’t stop himself from touching his lips from time to time, even if he already knew the phantom sense of metal against them to be but a cruel trick of his mind.

 

*

 

Loki didn’t mention his encounter with Lorelai to anyone, until Odin himself brought it up a few days later.

This time the All-Father had the nerve to invade his personal quarters, probably under the pretense that he still considered them to be Frigga’s. He was there waiting for Loki when he returned from his evening rounds and wasted no time getting to the subject at hand.

“Did you feel sorry for her?”

Loki didn’t have to question his meaning; despite his seemingly curious tone and the leisured way he perched on the steps surrounding the Queen’s fountain, Loki knew him to be anything but relaxed. He was an expert when it came to liars of all sorts and right now, Odin was giving out all the signs of an extremely lousy one.

Loki wasn’t sure if his meeting with Lorelai was something the ravens had spied or if Heimdall was to be blamed for it, but clearly it had had the effect to heckle the All-Father into action. It made him feel flattered, but something about it bothered him also, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. As he paced the floor under Odin’s scrutiny, he tried to puzzle it out, to no avail.

“No,” he finally admitted, if not entirely willingly. “Seeing her like that only reminded me of an experience I have no wish to repeat.”

The All-Father looked pleased at that. Perhaps he had indeed imagined that having Thor and his endless forgiveness at his disposal was his only bargaining chip, and now that he had left, it would only be a matter of time before Loki would tear down the palace, his own hard work be damned.

But when Odin next spoke, his words flowed from an entirely different vein. “I know you two were once close. Considering how few allies you have left, it took certain kind of courage to walk away from her.”

And that was when Loki suddenly understood what had caused that nagging sensation of wrongness. “You led me to her,” he hissed, feeling equal amounts of betrayed and impressed. “It was a test. You wanted to see how I would react, seeing how her _conditions_ so mirrored my own.”

 “Yes. And you proved that you are indeed capable of learning from past mistakes - a skill fit for a future king of Asgard, I should say.”

Loki turned sharply, if only to snarl at him for the ill-mannered jab. But what he found in Odin’s sole eye was not humor, but something much more chilling.

A desperate laugh crawled up his throat. He had been blind, that much was obvious, but never in his wildest dreams could he have predicted something as absurd as this. “Please tell me that you’re joking.”

“I’ll do no such thing,” Odin announced at once, deadly serious. “You forget that Thor himself once committed an act so heinous that I had no other option but to banish him, so that he could learn the error of his ways. Do you really think yourself to be so beneath him that you can’t hope to achieve the same?”

“But a Jotun,” Loki echoed hollowly, voicing an age-old argument, “sitting on the throne of Asgard.”

“You ruled once already, if however briefly. The decision concerning my successor is mine to make and mine alone. If one day I shall deem you suitable for the task, you will hear no objections.” In the face of his shocked expression, the All-Father explained, “When I banished Thor, I did it in the hopes that he would find some much-needed wisdom. Yet it appears that he only discovered the true size of his great heart. Noble as that may be, there are times when a king needs to forsake his own feelings for the good of his people, and that is something you and I have always understood far better than your brother.”

There it finally was: Odin’s first admission of how he had come to understand that Loki’s past actions had indeed served a purpose. Loki had deceived Thor because he had believed his recklessness as its king would endanger Asgard’s future, and he had destroyed Laufey and his men because he knew they proposed that very same threat, both choices that had cost him everything.

“I see. There is just this one detail that confuses me…” Loki waited until he saw Odin leaning forward in eager anticipation, before delivering the rest. “Was the decision to dangle the crown in front of me made before or after Thor first declined it?”

Odin frowned, his calm now shattered. “Loki –“

But his words were cut off as the fountain behind him suddenly roared to life, boiling over the edges so that Odin had to step aside to avoid being hit by splashes of hot water. In his mind, Loki imagined a pair of invisible reins as he forcefully reeled his magic back, and the water fell calm once more. The same couldn’t be said about his anger.

 “Oh no, please, tell me again how many of your _outstanding leadership qualities_ I possess,” he hissed. “I find it so flattering, especially since it does a remarkable job of glossing over the fact that once again, I’m to be your second best choice!”

“The insult you seek is but your own,” Odin insisted, his own fury now brewing beneath the stony exterior. “You see belittling where there is none!”

“And you see qualities I do not have, nor I ever wish to possess!“

It was as if the scales had fallen from his eyes and he could now see Odin as he truly was: an old man locked in a mad scramble to keep his remaining family within his choking grasp. If Loki’s own atonement to Frigga was like draining poison from a wound, then at the end of that act Odin saw him as an empty cup, ready to be filled with new and improved ingredients. Once again, just as he had done when he was an infant, Loki only existed to serve his purposes.

Somehow he thought of Thor then, and his own moment of clarity in that day in the throne room, when he had witnessed him cast aside all expectations. What was it that Loki had once said to him - that he had never wanted the throne, but only to be recognized as his equal?

If he had only known then that that choice was his to make and his alone, it would have saved them both from a world of trouble.

For some days now Loki had known that he was nearly finished with rebuilding Frigga’s lifework. Now, enforced by such an earthshattering revelation, it dawned on him how he was more than done with certain others things as well.

“Save your consolation prize for someone else,” he declared to Odin. “I would rather go begging on the doorstep of another’s than ever rule this kingdom. I hereby sever my ties to this family once and for all.”

 

*

 

“Oh, please,” Loki said with a grimace. “Don’t act like you haven’t been hoping for this for ages.”

“Perhaps,” Heimdall replied, as he readied his weapon in order to activate the Bifrost, “but I never expected you to leave by your own choice.”

By gods, Loki realized in horror; was that an actual _smile_ he saw on the Watcher’s face?

There seemed to be no suitable answer to give, and so, in the absence of words, he simply looked back at where he had come from. In the distance, the eternal city glowed golden and bright, and when he finally turned his eyes back ahead, it actually took a moment for the phantom corona to dissolve from his retinas.

But eventually it did, and then there was just the eerie darkness ahead, full of places, Loki knew, were no light could ever hope to reach.

He stepped into the Bifrost, and was once again lost to the world as he knew it.

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

As Loki made his way across the galaxy, he felt as if he was slowly unraveling at the seams.

Why was he here, he found himself thinking; what was his purpose in this world? These sorts of questions were surely something every being in the universe had wondered at some point during their existence, but after his decision to leave Asgard, Loki felt their weight more profoundly than ever, and this time, he didn’t have the luxury of the Tesseract to grant him the much-needed answers.

He decided to start with the most essential: who was he now? Questions about his nature had always haunted him, but this time the uncertainty felt anew. He no longer desired to rain vengeance on Asgard, or Thor, and he couldn’t have cared less about the All-Father’s opinion. For years now, rage had been the most prominent proof that he was still alive, while bitterness provided an anchor to the present moment. Having none of the two, it left Loki not-quite here. For now, it felt as if he only existed as a ghost.

But since making his way through the universe as a dead man’s shadow sounded beyond dreadful, he decided to try a different angle. Unlike his feelings of resentment, his magic hadn’t deserted him, even if it radiated discomfort after been put under the servitude of an ungrateful city. Loki tried to sooth it now as he collected his powers for a purpose far more familiar; he needed a key, a shape that would help him re-learn the possibilities of the universe, and a key _she_ would be.

It was in a noisy bar on a small moon, orbiting an even smaller planet, locked in a bathroom that reeked like some forsaken creature had crawled there to perish, where Loki looked at his reflection in the cracked mirror while he crafted his new self to life. He had taken female form in the past, but this time the results proved to be crucially different. Since it was easier to draw inspiration from already existing sources, she had aimed for Sif’s hair and her gait, and for Lorelai’s mocking smirk, ever present even behind shackles – but the woman who stared back from the mirror was undeniably Frigga’s daughter. Despite her dark hair, the curve of her lips and her high cheekbones were too familiar to belong to anyone else, as if shared magic could carry out whatever relation they lacked in actual blood.

There was always cold in the wilderness of the universe, but not that cold, so when Loki made the whites of her eyes bleed to scarlet, she did it in the hopes that she would not have to face her mother’s gaze every time she happened upon a mirror. She could learn to tolerate the red, as he had done with the cold, since she preferred to be reminded of her shortcomings in birth, rather than her losses in life.

Next, she needed a puzzle. It was eventually provided to her in yet another second-class bar by a ragtag band of mercenaries – or so Loki thought, before their self-proclaimed leader let it slip that they were in fact the famous Guardians of the Galaxy in the flesh.

“So you know us!” the one who had called himself Star-Lord exclaimed, his expression childishly proud. “Did you hear that, guys? Apparently we’re famous even in…“ Here, he was left snapping his fingers, before he gave up and turned back to Loki. “Hey, where did you say you were from? I didn’t quite catch that.”

“Vanaheim,” Loki answered calmly. She had picked Hogun’s home realm for the simple reason that it was both remote and isolated. In the rare chance that someone would think to ask her further questions about it, that person should already know better than to expect a Vanir to answer them.

“- in Vanaheim, yeah. Cool, right?”

The talking vermin sitting next to him didn’t seem equally impressed. He took another sip of his beer, before pointing Loki with the bottle. “So what’s your angle, lady? ‘cause I’m telling you right now, the ship ain’t  taking no groupies, no matter what Quill here tries to tell you.”

Star-Lord opened his mouth in protest, but Loki cut him off. “I simply wish to learn the truth from the source itself,” she offered sweetly. “In any case, I believe the story has been greatly exaggerated.”

They reacted in the same manner as she had seen countless Asgardians do, when they found themselves confronted with the idea that their supposed heroics were but simple boasting and empty words. The glee in Star-Lord’s eyes dimmed and for a moment, he appeared as if a toddle on the verge of a teary tantrum. Meanwhile Rocket had shot up from his seat and was now standing on the table, shouting obscenities, and even the talking tree sitting directly opposite of Loki went on to announce, “I _am_ Groot,” in a tone that could only mean: _your whole existence offends me._

Only the tattooed one that they had called Drax remained calm. He merely frowned at his friends’ behavior. “Clearly this woman has been given reason to doubt what we did, but she has come to us for the truth,” he reasoned. “I can’t see why we shouldn’t tell it to her.”

In the silence that followed, Loki could practically hear the gears turning inside their heads with an insufferable lag. Rocket finally allowed the Tree-man to pull him back to his seat, while Star-Lord rubbed the back of his neck.

 “Well,” he started, frowning. “Gamora doesn’t expect us back on the _Milano_ before midnight, so I guess we could…“

Mentioning Gamora’s name had clearly made him guilty. Star-Lord’s hand rested on the table and Loki was quick to cover it with her own.

“I will naturally provide compensation for your trouble.” She summoned the rest of her patience and flashed him her best smile. “For the next hour, all yours drinks are on me.”

Loki couldn’t be sure if it was the smile or the offer, but the chagrined expression on Star-Lord’s face disappeared in an instance and was replaced with the same boisterous smile from before. “Rocket, buddy,” he joked, turning to his right, “I think you should apologize to the nice lady here for –“, but by that time, Rocket was already unloading a handful of beers on the table and the sound drowned out the rest of his words.

And so, while nursing rounds from one to fifteen, Star-Lord and his companions told her of Ronan the Accuser and the orb, and how they had nearly managed to tore the universe apart in their mad scramble for it.

After the main focus of the story was over, Star-Lord, completely obnoxious to the fact that her attention had long since wandered elsewhere, continued to yammer on about a band of space pirates that had raised him. While he spoke, Loki merely watched him – a leisure that was accompanied by a twinge of painful familiarity. It was perhaps inevitable that he should remind her of Thor, with his boyish charms and his own acknowledgement over having them in his disposal, yet for all his boasting there was still something almost akin to innocence in his blue eyes.

Soon enough the man was lost in reminiscent about his childhood on – of all places - Earth. Loki had to suppress a shudder; Midgardians truly were like roaches, seeing how every corner of the universe was now crawling with them. It was odd to think that she still vividly remembered a time when humans were yet to discover all the continents of even their own tiny planet, let alone the galaxy.

She slipped away before Gamora would come looking for them, knowing her well enough by reputation to understand that it would be wiser to disappear than to risk falling under her scrutiny. Upon taking her leave, she took the time to tell the barkeeper that the bill should be put in Star-Lord’s tap.

As it happens, Loki hardly made it out of the bar and into the street, before there was a blade pressed against her throat. She could tell by the angle of the knife and the firm grip her attacker had on it that it was no ordinary pick-pocket, so her curiosity got the better of her and she allowed herself to be dragged to a nearby alley.

When Loki felt her back slam against a wall, the knife still a steady weight on her neck, she got her first glimpse of her mysterious companion. “Ah,” she said, as understanding dawned on her. “Daughter of Thanos. Or is it ex-daughter, now? I must confess that I’m a bit confused.”

Nebula rewarded her quip with a quick press of her knife, deep enough to draw blood. “You’re one to talk, Odin _son_. Where did you leave your manhood?” she hissed. “On Earth perhaps, along with your dignity?”

“Some things are easy enough to replace.” A glint of metal caught Loki’s eye and she followed it to where Nebula’s other hand curved around her bicep; she could have sworn that the last time they had seen each other, both of her arms had still been made of flesh. “Whereas I imagine that must have hurt quite a lot.”

Nebula gave her a smile that came with a side of sharp teeth. “I should know – I cut it off myself.”

Loki knew better than to expand the harmless chit-chat any further, since neither of Thanos’s adoptive daughters were known for their patience, although she had only ever met the one. Nebula had been there when she was given the Scepter, her dark eyes watching over the dealings with murderous indifference.

Back then Loki had felt no particular kinship to her. With her mind firmly cradled in the Tesseract’s blinding grip, she had believed herself to be above any watchdog of Thanos, even if this one had had the nerve to call herself his daughter. But fate was a cruel mistress indeed and the tables had turned: now, Loki wasn’t the only one considered scum in the eyes of an adoptive parent, and then there was, of course, the matter of their respective siblings. By Star-Lord’s testimonial, Nebula had sworn off her sister, yet here she was, spying on Gamora and her new allies. Loki wondered if it angered her, witnessing how taken the Midgardian-turned-ratified space explorer and Gamora seemed to be by one another, or if she was simply projecting her own mixed-up feelings upon their situation. It didn’t bear reminding that before Star-Lord she had already met one mortal capable of hosting such infinite power as the Orb’s without perishing on the spot.

In an attempt to collect her thoughts, Loki nudged her eyes towards the blade. “You can put that away now, since we both know you’re not going to use it.”

Nebula cocked her head almost curiously, with all the grace of a reptile watching its prey. “What makes you so sure of that?”

“Because if your meaning had been to intimidate me into revealing whether I intend to go crawl at Thanos’s feet and offer him a deal on the off chance that he should take pity on my life, then why take the risk at all? A quick kill would have spared you from guessing. So – seeing how you have decided to be civil about it – what is it that you think we have in common? And before you say ‘revenge’, I suggest you come up with something a bit more creative.”

“The Infinity Stones.”

As she said the words, Nebula watched her like a hawk. Loki was excellent at what she did, but nobody was quite _that_ good, so she simply allowed her lips to twist into a knowing grimace. “Ah.”

Nebula nodded in satisfaction. She finally took a step back and pocketed her knife. “So it’s as I suspected - you know of them. Gamora’s under the illusion that locking them away will keep Thanos from finding them, but I know better. He’s already located at least four of them and once he learns about the last two, he _will_ collect, and when he does, simply losing our lives to him is the least of our worries.”

After all the trouble the Guardians had caused to Thanos, as well as being betrayed by his adoptive daughter (even by both, it seemed), one could be fooled into believing how  the Titan would be more interested in pursuing them than some long-forgotten leader of a failed Chitauri invasion. But for all his omnipotence Thanos took pride in near pettiness when it came to delivering punishments and Loki knew better than to expect that a humiliating defeat in battle and her short stay in Asgard’s prison would serve for whatever retribution Thanos had in mind for her. His unenviable wrath had been amongst the many reasons why Loki should have made the decision to die that day in Svartalfheim, when a peaceful death was still something she could dream of.

“One stone is child’s play, two or perhaps three I could still understand – but six?” Loki shook her head. “Surely that much power…”

“He intends to use the Gauntlet to harness their powers.”

“The Gauntlet?”

“It’s a specialized piece of armor, designed to both contain and combine their might,” Nebula said, her voice tight with annoyance for having to explain herself. “He doesn’t have it yet, but once he has the Stones in his disposal, he’ll go looking for it.”

“Let me guess: your brilliant plan is to find the missing Stones as well as the Gauntlet before Thanos does – in order to do what, exactly?” Loki inquired, one brow arched skeptically. “Master their powers yourself?”

“Wouldn’t you, if you were in my position?” she only scoffed. “As if you already didn’t try; I saw the greed in your eyes when you first touched that Scepter and laid your hand on the Tesseract. Anyway, once I have the Gauntlet, using even some of the Stones to destroy Thanos isn’t going to be a problem.”

“And what of Gamora?”

“What about her?”

In all honesty, Loki already had the answer to her following question all puzzled out, but she decided to voice it anyway, if for no other reason than to hear her admitting it out loud. “Aren’t you afraid that she and her new friends might come after you?”

The look in Nebula’s beetle-black eyes was equal parts of hunger and fury. “I’m counting on it,” she said, her tone as sure as any given promise.

She has been put together, over and over again, built anew. But for all her cybernetics and replaceable limbs, it seemed that the part that thought of Gamora in such terms always remained. It was as if she had hidden it in a box in her mind that she then put inside another and so forth, like those Midgardian matryoshka dolls Loki knew of, until even she couldn’t be quite sure how far down the feeling was buried. Loki desperately wished she wasn’t familiar with the procedure herself.

She smiled at Nebula in conspiratorial manner, as she inquired, “And what is it that you need me for, precisely?”

 

*

 

On this particular post-disownment reunion, Odin appeared even more unimpressed than before. “Back so soon?” he simply asked, resting his chin on his hand as he gazed down at him from his throne.

Loki bit the inside of his cheek until his mouth tasted faintly of blood. He was almost glad for it, since it helped him to push down bile that had attempted to crawl up his throat ever since he stepped off the Bifrost. As of now, he couldn’t be sure whether the disgust was more due to the scenery, or if it was caused by his current shape, his _old_ self, that he had draped on for the sake of some misplaced decency, and which now felt like an ill-fitted suit and seemed to reek of decay in a way only he could both taste and smell. He already missed his previous form fiercely, ephemeral as she had been.

Dismissing his own discomfort for the time being, he pushed on. “I have come with warnings. It has come to my attention that sooner or later, either Thanos the Titan or some of his disciplines will try to steal the Tesseract. I can also guarantee that wherever it is that you have placed the Aether, it isn’t going to be safe there for much longer.”

Since the All-Father had a known tendency to meddle in the affairs of the Realms, there had always been something highly suspicious in his clear reluctance to store such things as the Tesseract in his vault. Still - although Loki had been careful not to admit it - it had been Nebula herself who had given him the final confirmation that the six Infinity Stones were actual artifacts that existed and not something that only belonged on the pages of those old books he had come across during his studies. By mentioning the Tesseract and the Scepter by name, she had also identified them both as such. Based on Star-Lord’s description and Thanos’s desire to acquire it, what had been inside the Orb was definitely the third. As for the Aether – which had to be the missing fourth, given its power - it wasn’t in Asgard, that Loki was sure of, otherwise his magic would have recognized its shape while running amok. It was probable that the famous Collector already had it.

“It was but a blink ago that you stormed away from here, swearing as you went that you would never return”, Odin recalled slowly. “And yet here you are, with such news no less. Why the sudden change of heart?”

“Seeking to disengage myself from you and your schemes isn’t the same as abandoning Asgard,” Loki replied scornfully. “Or did you really think that I would sacrifice both my time and skills to revive this city just so I could stand aside and watch as someone else brings it down, along with the rest of the universe?”

“Fair enough. Consider your warnings noted -” the All-Father said, making Loki’s heart jump unexpectedly in his chest “- however unnecessary they are. I already knew the risks of guarding such objects and as such, have taken all necessary measures to secure them.”

What had begun as a great wave of astonishment crashed absurdly against his chest and was doused to nothingness. Loki hoped his glare told as much. “The last I checked, Asgard is now without its best warrior and has but your own insipid stunts to trust when it comes to magic.”

“You should know better than to blame me for you and your brother’s absence,” Odin countered. But then, in a mocking show of joviality, he went on to promise, “But seeing as you are here now, you are welcome to check the enchantments, should you find yourself so very compelled to seek reassurance.”

A breath he had not quite realized he had been holding escaped Loki’s lips. He inclined his head in a bow, shielding from Odin’s view the private smirk that lingered after.

 

*

 

This time Loki didn’t rely on the Bifrost as he left; instead he took one of the smaller vessels and used it to travel by one of his secrets pathways. Soon enough, he was sailing in the safety of Nifleheim’s great forests, shielded from prying eyes by trees high enough to reach the skies.

By now the Asgardians must have noticed that Lorelai was missing from her cell. Her escape would undoubtedly provide a timid distraction for Odin, as well as reassure him that freeing her had been what brought Loki back in the first place. He would either take it as an act of sentimentality or simply as an exercise to rile him, but as far as misuses of magic went, it was relatively mild.

That problem being taken care of, Loki conjured back into being what had initially been Nebula’s reason to usher him into seeking easy access into Asgard, and most of all, into Odin’s vault. He turned it over in his hands, as if to test whether his own magic would feel strengthened by it, but felt nothing. The strange steel was cold to the touch, the respective six holes nothing but mute promises of future glory.

Still, he thought, it now felt rather foolish of him to spend so many years of his childhood in awe of the Jotunheim Casket, when the famous Gauntlet had been but few steps away from it this whole time.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

During his stay in Nifleheim, Loki dreamed of the world ending.

It all started in Asgard at twilight, as three roosters crooned to announce the coming battle. In the dream Loki had the Gauntlet in his hand, but through its empty sockets he could see that he now had great claws where he once had had fingers and scales all over in place of skin, and every move of his muscles tore the Yggdrasil farther from its very roots. He felt relief, such as he had never known before. He watched the sky as it slowly turned to black and thought: no more pretending; no more disguises. Stars went out one by one, and at last, he was at peace in the remaining nothingness. Everything was as it should be. Nothing in the beast he had become was unavoidable.

And then, as he shuttered awake, Thor was standing there next to him. Of course he was.

The last time they had seen each other in Asgard, Loki had known to expect him - but this time Thor had come unannounced, leaving him entirely unprepared for it.

As Loki rose to his feet, he let his eyes roam across Thor’s form. Standing there beneath the shadows of the towering trees, clad in modest Midgardian clothing instead of his usual armor and surrounded by the decaying smell of the forest floor beneath their boots, he appeared far from royalty and looked more like a common wanderer, who had taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way, only to find himself lost amidst the celestial wilderness. But more than his changed garments, it was his newfound stillness that troubled Loki; out of the two of them, Thor had always been more comfortable in letting his body do the talking for him, so the sight of his arms hanging limply against his sides when they could have been reaching for him was jarring. Even Thor’s face, usually as expressive as the sky in grips of a great storm, remained unreadable.

It was only when Thor made the tiniest of moves that Loki’s attention was drawn to the flickering quality of it. He studied Thor’s outlines, there and gone as fast as quicksilver, and suddenly he knew. It was the only reason why he lifted a hand to touch him first, marveling the way it fell through thin air in place of toned flesh.

“You’re not really here at all, are you?” Loki asked in a whisper.

Thor had flinched when his hand had ghosted through him, as if for a moment he hadn’t been quite so sure which of them had been presumed dead. But his question was enough to break the spell and Loki watched as clear remorse spilled across his features, animating them once more.

“No,” Thor admitted. “I have made a new ally and it is in Lady Wanda’s power to grant wishes to a certain degree. I wished to see you.”

“Of course; I should have known it would take you no time at all to find yourself a new sorcerer once I was gone.” He saw Thor’s sharp intake of air and hurried to ask, “How, then, did you find out I was alive?”

“Lorelai told it to me yesterday. We ran into each other here on Midgard.”

 “I see. And where is she now?”

“I do not know,” Thor confessed, obviously irked. “She avoided capture – it appears that someone has taught her new tricks.”

“Really?” At this point feigning innocence was futile and Loki knew his tone told as much, but it didn’t stop him from trying; when had it ever? “How unfortunate for you.”

Even if it was only on his second visit that he had set her free, Loki now thought of the day he had left Asgard for the first time, and how in all that commotion it had perhaps escaped the public knowledge that those books of Frigga’s Loki had first intended for himself had somehow found their way into Lorelai’s cell. They might have taken her voice, but they both spoke a language that had no need for words. In that sense, that stack of books was as close to an actual apology that he could ever manage.

The calm that had existed in the small forest clearing was now irrevocably shattered. Far above their heads leaves rustled in the breeze, ancient trees whispering to each other as they bore witness to the unfolding spectacle. Despite the fact that he had only just woken up, Loki could already feel a great wave of exhaustion washing over him. He knew he ought to be finding out what else Thor knew of his doings or of Asgard, but for the life of him he couldn’t gather the needed energy for such an interrogation. He had circled the galaxy in attempt to outrun every aspect of his past, only to be cornered by them time and time again. Lorelai had glimpses of his origins concealed behind her smile, Nebula and her oh-so-familiar blue skin but an epitome of everything he – _she_ – could hope to become with the Gauntlet’s help. And now Thor of all people had sought him out. It made Loki seriously consider whether the universe with its many moving components was truly so desperate to end itself that it constantly arranged these sort of catastrophic collisions to happen.

With considerable effort Loki forced himself to focus on the present moment. Slowly he began to prowl in a circle around Thor, hoping it would at least create the illusion that he was the one being in control.

“I’m curious; did you manage to find out why Lorelai came there in the first place?” he asked, thinking about her and her chosen path instead. “Since her previous visits to Midgard haven’t ended that well for her, I confess that I expected her to pick some destination less… conspicuous.”

“We think she came looking for allies,” Thor admitted. And that didn’t make any sense, at least not until he continued, “Midgard has changed since you were last here. Now there are certain individuals with inhuman skills, talents such as ours. Some of them haven’t been… as well received as others. There has even been talk about a law that prevents them from using their powers, unless they submit their names to a public register first.”

“So, bigotry and a high risk of incarceration,” Loki summed up dryly.  “Let me guess: it reminded you of me?”

“Some of those people are my friends, Loki! To see them treated like they are something to be afraid of – something monstrous that needs to be hunted down and captured…” Thor shook his flaxen head. “It pains me to think that only a short while ago my own opinions were not that different.”

That had the power to stop Loki dead in his tracks. Unfortunately it happened just as he was facing Thor. “Am I meant to take this as a warning, then?” he asked. “In case I decide to follow Lorelai’s example.”

“Why would I warn you, when I know perfectly well that you never listen to such things,” Thor said. His words were accompanied by a rakish grin, a sight once so common now reduced to a rarity. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared. “No, I told you already – I only came because I wished to see you with my own eyes.”

If pressed, Loki would be forced to admit how in the few past years Thor had indeed become cleverer, so it was entirely possible that this had been his plan from the beginning: to slowly lure Loki into his personal orbit, until the gravity that had always existed between them made it impossible for him to escape. Now he could only watch, transfixed, as Thor stepped forward, finally closing the distance between them.

“When Lorelai first mentioned that you were alive, I didn’t know if I should trust her”, he said. “I wasn’t sure whether it was a kindness or yet another trick – a cruel attempt to trap me with false hope.”

A memory of his previous dream flashed in Loki’s mind and for a moment the nails he had dug against the flesh of his palms felt far sharper, his body but an appendix for the vast chaos that was only bidding its time beneath his flesh.  “Hope?” Even the word sounded wrong, _mangled_ , coming from him. “Don’t you see - there is no hope here. A true kindness would have been to let you believe I was dead and spare us both from the inevitable. Or do you truly think that since I helped you to defeat Malekith, I’m somehow _redeemed?_ ”

“Not because of that,” Thor answered. “But because what you did for Jane. I saw you saving her, for what was nearly with the expense of your own life. Why would you do such a thing?”

Loki howled a laugh, the sound of it equal amounts of resentfulness and pity. Of course it was _her_ , the paragon of all that was holy in the universe; to whose actions all good deeds were measured against in Thor’s eyes. “Because loving that mortal will ruin you in more ways than I could ever manage! What is her life but a blink compared to yours? She will age and gray while you stay as you are now, and it will destroy you both.  Letting her die back then would have been a mercy, if only so that you could have committed her image to memory, before all that is stripped away by time.”

He expected anger; he expected denial. But Thor only looked steadily at him with those unyielding eyes of his, his brow furrowed in confusion. “You speak as if I know nothing of loss,” he said, “as if the decision to love hasn’t always cost me the greatest price imaginable. You of all people should know that.”

Loki felt his own eyes widening in shock. He blinked to hide it, struggling to find his voice. “I never asked for any of it,” he whispered.

“No, you did not. But she did, and for once it is a wish I can fulfill that brings us both joy, even if it only lasts for the span of her life.”

“And after?”

Thor merely shrugged; such arrogance, Loki thought, in the face of eternity spend in mourning. How he had ever expected any less from Thor was beyond him. “That I do not know,” he said. “Maybe the question will answer itself once that day arrives. Until then, I stand by the one who needs me.”

“You speak as if I don’t.”

The words had slipped out before Loki managed to push them back to whatever dark and desperate corner they had surfaced from. But by then, it was too late; Thor was already stepping even closer and there they finally were - his hands rising to hover around Loki’s form, clearly desiring something solid to grasp, reminding him of an entirely different dream.

“Have you ever?” Thor barked. “Tell me, brother: has there ever been a time when you willingly desired my company, or was it always such a heavy burden to you as you have come to let me believe?”

“I always thought it was you who felt burdened with me.”

“Loki, I beg you: for once, stop speaking in riddles!”

He was no longer a rightful ruler in exile; he had rebuilt a kingdom with his own blood and then turned down the chance to rule as its king. Here, at the edge of the universe, Loki was inclined to believe that his famous silver tongue was his only remaining treasure. “And what if they are all that I am anymore? What do you think: is it possible to spend one’s entire life weaving such illustrious lies, without falling prey to them as well?”

“If you truly are compelled to lie then please, do so by my account, but not when it comes to yourself,” Thor pled. Loki saw him drawing a shaky breath and it was this uncharacteristic hesitance that already made him wary before the actual confession came spilling out. “I know it was you who gave me his blessing the day I left Asgard. Not our Father, but _you_. Even if your plan was to bring me misery by letting me go live with Jane, then why say such a thing, when it was already clear that I was leaving?”

“Because at the time you thought me dead and I believe there is a saying how the dead won’t tell lies,” Loki whispered. “Does that answer your question?”

 “Loki…“

As he spoke the name, Thor was yet again attempting to encircle him with his presence, being forced to forgo any physical touch as he was. Loki was the one with the skill to multiply, yet now it was Thor who seemed to be everywhere at once. They were nearly pressed chest to chest, Thor standing so close that if he had been there in person, Loki would have felt his breath ghosting hot against his face. Since he wasn’t real, it was ridiculous that the nearness of his body still hit Loki like an electric current, his skin now appearing far too tight to contain all of him. It made him want to seize Thor’s wandering hands and weave their fingers together, clasping them until they would both lose all feeling and it became impossible to tell where Thor’s fingers ended and his own wrongful flesh started.

“What are you really doing here, Thor?” Loki demanded to know. “Why do you insist on this charade?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Thor said, his tone excruciating in its honesty. “It is because I l-“

_“Don’t.”_

There he went again, taking things that weren’t his to claim. If Thor had really been there, Loki could have slapped the palm of his hand over his mouth in time and stopped those words from ever seeing the light of day. But he wasn’t, and to his horror Loki came to realize that like in some mockery of a puppeteer’s act, his hand was now tightly clasped over his own lips.

During the weeks before he had hoped that this was something he could bleed out of his body and into the demanding stones of the palace, and when that hadn’t worked, he had tried to scatter it across the stars, only to discovered that he carried it still: this monstrous feeling, felt by a monstrous being. It filled his chest with a mutilated mixture of hope and longing that was followed by a ravenous hunger fit for the beast skulking in his dreams. More than anything else, he wanted to take this weak body of his that craved such insignificant things and bury it in a shallow grave, so that the sight of it could act as a warning for others that found themselves tempted by their traitorous hearts; here lies Loki, it would read on the headstone by it, slain by his own sense of self, once it grew weary of being brushed aside time and time again.

It was something Thor would never come to understand, he thought: how caring could be seen as cruelty; how his willingness to divide his affections between two worlds, between two _people_ , was but greed in Loki’s eyes.

Thor’s actions spelled that he wanted to have him and Jane both, or otherwise he would not give himself the permission to enjoy neither of them fully, and once again Loki burned for it.

He could sense that Thor wanted to do it for him, so eventually Loki forced himself to peel his fingers away from his lips. After, he still found it impossible to raise his eye to meet Thor’s and kept staring at his feet instead. Eventually that led to a curious observation that demanded to be voiced.

“You really do have the worst timing in the whole universe.”

Thor’s frown could be heard from his voice alone. “Meaning?”

“It _means_ that our time here has come to an end.”

And true enough: before his eyes Thor was already beginning to fade. Whatever the spell was, it was obviously pulling him back to Midgard’s earthly embrace.

Loki opened his mouth to speak, and as he did, Thor in turn strained to hear the words, his form flickering back to solid once more, reality itself stretching its limits to accommodate the needs of its favored child.

“If there is one thing I’m genuinely sorry,” Loki allowed at last, when he could be sure that he had Thor’s full attention, “then it’s for all the pain that we are yet to inflict on each other.”

“Finally, an honest answer.” Thor’s parting smile was as bright and blinding as a passing comet. “Whenever you apologize, it feels like a promise in disguise.”

Then he was finally gone.

 

Before Thor’s unexpected arrival, all of Loki’s thoughts had been of the Gauntlet. Only the very same morning he had failed to show up at the rendezvous with Nebula, which undoubtedly made him the sworn enemy of not one but two intergalactic assassins – a fate he preferred only slightly to becoming a pawn in the scheme that would eventually seek to end him.

During their previous talk Nebula had seemed certain that she could learn to control the Gauntlet and use it to bring an end to Thanos’ rule of terror - which was all well and good, if only Loki had been as certain about her success as she was. At the moment he was more inclined to believe that once Thanos came to learn that she had the Gauntlet in her possession, taking it from her would be as simple as stealing sweets from a child. He might save that act as his grand finale, since there was a good chance that the Titan already knew of Nebula’s search for the two missing Infinity Stones and was currently using her as an uninformed accomplice in locating them.

Last night, just before he had fallen asleep, Loki had wondered about the further implications of his betrayal, of whether Nebula would be forced to make good on her promise and turn to Gamora for help. In light of today’s happenings, the word ‘ironic’ didn’t even begin to cover it.

Long after Thor had vanished, Loki continued to stare at the spot where he had stood. He stared at it for so long that eventually his eyes started to hurt and colors became blurred together in a mixture of greys and blacks. The paralyzing emptiness lasted for a moment, until fury, cold as steel on a midwinter’s morning, began to fill him from top to bottom.

He thought of his previous yearning to be touched by Thor, which somehow led him to remember the snow globe he had been given as the child. All this time he had solely blamed Thor for its fate, but of course the truth he had been so averse to admitting was that it had been Loki himself who first handed it to him. Loki had been willing to give away his most prized possession, simply because Thor asked him for it. And then – displeased that it dared to disobey him – Thor broke it, easy as breathing.

Thor only needed to ask him for it and he would continue to provide. Nothing in that particular outcome was unavoidable.

If there was one thing Loki truly disliked, it was pure idiocy. Now that his own stupidity had become so undisputedly evident, he strongly felt that it was time someone finally put an end to it.

 

*

 

A very long time ago, Frigga had told him a bedtime story that had been unlike all the ones that came before and even after it.

“An ancient tale tells that there were once three Jotun maidens of noble birth, all blessed with abilities that we nowadays refer to as sorcery. When the Jotuns first waged war against Midgard, those three were set against it, because they were able to foresee the grim destiny that would befall their race should they be foolish enough to invoke the anger of the Ǽsir. Each of the Giantesses tried in turn to talk to the Jotun lords, but they soon learned that a woman’s warning wasn’t worth much, and the hearts of the men too filled with vengeance to be reasoned with. Angered by their dismissive attitudes, as well as unable to remain as silent witnesses to the impending doom, the three maidens left Jotunheim when they still could and went on to settle into a hidden location at the very root of Yggdrasil. There they continue to lift water from the Well of Uror and pour it onto the tree, thus keeping the river of magic that flows through the realms from drying out. It is said that over the years other women from all races have joined them there in the hopes of finding a sanctuary.” Here, Frigga’s tone had suddenly changed. “The women who dwell in that place are called the Norns and they have in their disposal powers that are not lightly to be tampered with. The kind of sorcery I know and you will someday master is very different from that, and you should do well by not drawing any comparison between them.”

Loki still remembered the surge of excitement that filled his chest after hearing those words, but he had known better than to show it. “Different how, exactly?”

Back then Frigga had still been able to see through his tricks, but she had simply wiggled her finger at him in warning. “What they have is magic at its most elemental form. If you ask something from it, you might just end up losing more than you initially hoped to gain.”

 

A week after his meeting with Thor, Loki stood in the hidden halls of the Norns and waited.

Finding his way there had proved more difficult than he had first anticipated. After many failed experiments with various locating spells, his attempts to track down people commonly associated with the Norns had proved equally fruitless. As his last option he had resorted to rune magic, something he had always greatly disliked for its impracticality, but which in this case turned out to be the key element. As soon as Loki had connected the runes in order to create the image of a door, it had opened and beckoned him to step inside.

The room he had come to find himself was nearly cavernous in nature, with high ceiling and walls made of bare stone. His breath misted in the cold air as he breathed, but not everything was frozen solid, as he could hear the distinguish cascade of water from some place unseen to the eye.

He needed not to wait long. A lone figure soon appeared at the other end of the room, and as she drew nearer, Loki could see that it was a woman near his height and with dark brown hair, dressed in simple robes.

“My name is Karnilla,” she said. “What brings you into the Hidden Realm?”

“I seek the help of the Norns.”

In a way of answer Karnilla tilted her head and closed her eyes, giving the image of someone who was concentrated on hearing a conversation that Loki wasn’t privy to. When her eyes opened for the second time, it wasn’t her gaze that greeted him.

 _“You are of Jotunheim, like us,”_ said the Giantesses (for they could be no else) with her mouth. Loki noted that it was an observation, not a question. _“Long have we waited for the day when one of Jotun should come to find us. Your nature would be in your favor, if it weren’t for the blood in our hands. Do not think that we are unaware of your many crimes, Loki child of Layfey, least of those that you have committed against our own.”_

“I don’t,” Loki forced himself to answer in a steady voice. “That is precisely why I think you would be interested in hearing what I’m about to ask you.”

 

*

 

When you really thought about it, a Midgardian super market wasn’t that different from the whole universe itself. Like the very food placed on display, everything came with an expiration day: stars, planets, people. Even love. Wasn’t that exactly what Loki was trying to prove here?

Nothing lasted forever, no matter how much you wanted it to.

Jane was standing just a few feet ahead of him, a can of soup in her hand and her eyes wide in shock. She was still too stunned to be thinking of running – no, he corrected himself, it was more like she wasn’t the fleeing kind to begin with. Maybe it was the very reason why his brother felt about her the way he did; they were both too stubborn to back away from something they had no means to beat. Loki wished he could truly hate her, but unfortunately things were never that simple and his only comfort in the matter was that soon, someone else would be forever bound to the terrible, all-consuming epiphany that was Thor incarnate.

Loki slowly closed the remaining distance between them. Only when he was close enough to be sure that his next words would stay between them, he whispered, “One more thing: when this is done, tell him that Thanos is coming for this world.”

As Jane watched, frozen, Loki placed his palm over her heart.

A surge of power, like a great river unleashed, flowed from him to her. As he felt his life-force leave him so it could take place inside her, it felt like the very meat was stripped from his bones. The pain didn’t stop there; at some point Loki felt his knees give and then he was on the ground, his body spasming as the last of his divine powers rippled away from him.

 

_“For a mortal to become one among gods is not easily managed. A trade like that will most certainly kill you.” The Giantesses had sounded genuinely surprised. “Is that what you want?”_

_Loki had made sure that his voice was heavy with guilt. “I nearly put an end to all Jotuns as you very well know. In light of that, isn’t death the least I deserve?”_

_“Very well. We will see it done.”_

From the corner of his eye, Loki could see Jane leaning against one of the shelves, cradling her chest with her hands and her expression shocked, an endless litany of _“oh my god”_ s spilling out of her mouth. Loki wanted to tell her that calling such beings was a moot point, seeing as she had just become near immortal herself, but he couldn’t summon the strength. Anyway, by the looks of it, she already guessed it.

He was still lying on the ground when the fluorescence lights above began to flicker and crack, before going out complitely and steering the whole space into darkness. Loki expected it to invoke a chorus of loud protests from those few other customers that had remained blissfully unaware of the events that were unfolding just a few isles away, but apart from Jane’s shocked gasp, no such thing happened. That was when he knew, and he made sure to call up a smile, so that his grin was already firmly in place when the lights came back on a few moments later. When they did, a familiar figure was bent over him, his golden hair surrounded by a halo of equally blinding light.

Thor got on his knees and wrapped his arms around his shoulders. When they made contact, it felt like pouring icy water on patch of badly burned skin. It occurred to Loki that he was thinking the same thing he had once thought in Svartalfheim: that it didn’t really count if he only allowed Thor to touch him when he was dying.

“Loki,” Thor said, in a grave voice that Loki could have found equal to Odin’s condescendence, if it weren’t for the heartbreak in it. “What have you done?”

His eyes were so very blue that gazing into them felt like Loki was experiencing death by drowning. Perhaps it was true in a sense, only in this case he had been under as long as he could remember.

A peal of laughter got stuck half-way down his throat, where it rattled around like a caged creature. “Not too long ago, I asked you if you thought it was fair - an immortal life in exchange for hers. You told me you would leave such decisions to me.”

Thor looked from him to Jane and then back, his expression hopelessly lost. He seemed puzzled why Loki was once more willing to put his life on the line for her sake, when all things considered it would have made more sense for him to kill her.

“It means that I have grown weary of your handouts,” Loki answered his unspoken question. “Asgard’s throne – your wretched heart,” he managed to snarl, “I will _not_ stand meekly in line and wait for neither.”

He watched as understanding finally dawned on Thor, draining his face of its remaining color. “I said I would spend this lifetime with her.”

“And now I have given you an eternity. I wonder: do you consider that a trap,” Loki proposed, his words now coming out closer to gasps, “or perhaps a kindness?”

Thor was clearly not in the mood for semantics. “First I lose you on that bridge. Then for the second time in Svartalfheim. Each time you leave, you take part of me with you.”

 _And each time I do, something of me lingers_ , Loki’s mind supplied unbidden. He bit the inside of cheek hard enough to taste blood, had its iron tang not already filled his mouth some moments before. “Well, you know what they say down here.” He tried to shrug, only to learn that his body failed to respond. “Third time’s the charm.”

The skin around the corners of Thor’s eyes tightened in silent fury, reminding him of the boy who had once learned to pull lighting from the sky with his will alone.  “This isn’t over”, he said.

He swore it with the same conviction as Nebula had when she spoke of Gamora. And the worst of it was, that Loki believed him. Perhaps it meant that he had finally used every trick up his sleeve, but he felt himself surrendering to that promise.

 “No,” he sighed, “I suppose it isn’t.”

And this time, without having any choice in the matter, Loki closed his eyes and welcomed his death.

*

Of course, what Thor – or anyone else for that matter – hadn’t known, was this:

Between his unexpected meeting with Thor and his audience with the Norns, Loki finally took that boat to Hel.

Whereas all the Ǽsir were destined by Odin’s rule to spend their afterlives in Valhalla, Loki held no illusions to where he would end in death; eternity in Hel was reserved for monsters and traitors alike, and since he was both, his place among the ranks of the lowest realm was akin to a birthright.

It was a journey not many living souls had managed to make with their hearts still beating at the end of it, but Loki anchored himself in the seeds of chaos and ruin he had in him, and by doing so, kept from being terrorized by the spirits of the beings that now haunted the very realm for all eternity.

Once he had gained access to Hela’s throne room, he threw the Gauntlet at her feet and kneeled by it.

If the very realm was enough to inflict unimaginable horrors, then that same thing could be said about its ruler. The endless infinity that acted as Hela’s eyes swept over the golden glove, as she seemed to be considering the offer. Here in her kingdom of decay she had everything she could ever wish for – but Loki knew well that when you had witnessed your fair share of it, sometimes even death could start to seem like such a bore.

And true enough –

“What is it that you want for it?” Hela asked, her voice like a gasp of breath in an airless room.

“A favor,” Loki said simply.

“Name it, then.”

“It has come to my attention that you have in your possession a book that bears all the names of those who are to die and enter this place. I want my name,” he continued, “to be taken out of it.”

“The souls of those not written in the book cannot find rest,” Hela explained. Maybe he was wrong, but Loki could have sworn that there was a hint of curiosity in her tone. “They are forced to cycle though life over and over again, perhaps even reliving their past mistakes. Is that what you truly want?”

“A new beginning?” Now, Loki dared to gaze up at her with a smile. “Who wouldn’t?”

 

 


End file.
